Guardi was designed by Reinhard Haus of Linotype in 1987. It was named after the Guardi brothers, Gianantonio and Francesco, the last famous artists from the Renaissance Venetian school of painting.

With its telltale oblique cross stroke on the lowercase e, and the obliqued serifs on lowercase ascenders, Guardi is classified as a Venetian. Guardi has obvious calligraphic origins, as can be seen in letters with angular shapes or subtle terminal strokes.

Guardi is a reliable text face that adds a sparkle to the page infrequently seen with digital types.